Raising Pre Flop - Good or Bad ?

[projectaero]

Hey guys.
I was playing a SnG before and i got pocket 6's i was thinking about what to do from here.
As the chances of hitting trips is 1/8 or so wouldnt it be good to raise preflop as its not really a strong hand but if most fold except for a couple who would probaly have JQ,AK or so, wouldnt this be the best case scenario ?

Or do you think slow play middle pockets to try and hit the trips ?

Cheers

 

[Armwarmer]

There's no correct answer to this.

The situation you're in is very important.

If you're shortstacked, the hand usually plays itself. You might push all in and try to take the blinds and still be content being up agaisnt two overcards, or call a raise if you're getting acceptable value given the range of hands you can put your opponnent on.

If you're deep however, in a tourney or a cash game, it gets a bit more tricky:

I like to mix it up, but more often than not I will raise with a mid pocket pair if I'm opening the betting. This does three things.

1. If I hit my set, often its very hard for an opponent to put me on that hand in particular. If its a ragged flop (that makes me my set) and I fire out a bet, and often I'll get looked up or reraised because my opponent simply thinks I'm cont betting with two overcards.

2. It builds the size of the pot, so that when I do hit my set, I can get more value out of the hand.

3. If I miss the flop and don't hit my set, often I can pick up the pot with a continuation bet assuming none of my opponents hit the flop.

If I'm in late position, and it's raised to me, more often than not I'll just call the bet. The higher the pairs go, however, the more likely I am to throw in a reraise. This is because that the higher the pair, the more likely an underflop will occur, which is also generally a +EV situation for your hand.

The other option with medium pairs is to just limp. The benefits that I find are as follows.

1. When you limp, the chances of seeing a flop increase. In a hand where you may have raised with 6-6 and picked up the blinds from someone with a hand like jack-4, by letting them in you gain alot of value should the flop come something like jack-6-4, ect.

2. Most of the time, low pocket pairs are going to miss. Why put money in a pot with a hand that's speculative at best?

3. When you limp, someone behind might raise, trying to pick up what he may figure is dead money. In this situation, you can call his raise with a low pocket pair. Should you hit, you can check to the original bettor, who will most likely fire a cont bet into your monster and could even attempt to two or three barrel you. In this situation, you can often extract alot of value out of someone who may have actually folded to your preflop raise.

What I'd suggest though is mixing it up, so you remain unpredictable.